How Much Will A Website Redesign Cost?

Did you know that 48% of people cite a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business? Dare we ask, then, how credible IS your website?

At the end of the day, a website is your business's most valuable marketing tool. It’s the first impression of your entire company that many people get. Your website drives leads and drives sales. Having a sharp, functional, intuitive, and attractive website can pay-off with more customer acquisition and building a strong, recognizable brand.

But, what if your website is not sharp, modern, or useful?

Well, a website redesign is probably in order.

A total redesign is worth it, and it’s also worth taking the time to do well. I mean, almost half the people visiting your website are judgy folk passing verdicts about your entire business just from one look at the website! It’s important to have an excellent website, but, all talk aside, at the end of the day we all just really want to know:

“How much will a website redesign cost us?!?!?!”

The Factors that Determine Redesign Costs:

Every website is different. Every website does not get treated equally. At the end of the day, there are lots of vectors that add up to impact the final cost of your website's redesign. It’s hard to take a five-second look at your website and come up with a final cost. In fact, if a vendor or colleague or a neighbor’s cousin’s best friend’s sister quickly looks at your website and gives you a fixed price for a full redesign— sleep on it and get a second opinion.

It’s not to say that a website redesign is an extremely complex project that’s difficult to scope. The reality, though, is that websites have many intricate details built-in that you should consider and account for during a redesign. The additional time and effort that go into building or rebuilding each detail are where the cost of your redesign comes together.

Let’s take a look through the different elements of your website that will determine the cost of your redesign.

Functionality & Advanced Features

The cost of your website redesign will depend on what CMS you are migrating from (like Wordpress or Joomla), and if there is an existing migrating connector.

Complex functionalities or layouts (like animated icons or if you want a customer blog view) need additional coding. These types of functionalities, often key to the uniqueness or intuitiveness of your website, take more time and effort. They’ll cost a bit more.

Any technical updates necessary, like an SEO migration, also increase costs. Work with a vendor or colleague that looks through the entire makeup of your website and CMS and can scope the technical needs upfront. The estimated cost will be more accurate, and costs won’t increase as the project moves forward.

Size, Number of Pages, and Number of Wireframes

The size of your website and the number of pages will definitely impact the cost of a redesign. More pages mean more content to organize, more design, and more content creation. How often you post to your blog will influence the price of an entire redesign.

Additional templates, built-in tools, and photography will likely increase the cost as well. This extra work is scoped separately and adds to the final cost. You’ll probably involve a professional photography agency to source quality images that personify your website—a worthy investment that nonetheless adds to the final price.

The complexity and size of your wireframes, and the number of revisions, will drive up the cost as well. It’s perfectly okay to create an initial wireframe that captures the entire project. If you need back-and-forth revisions or updates to the wireframes throughout the redesign, though, the additional time spent adds to the final cost.

Content Creation

This is often the most overlooked but impactful part of your website—the content.

If you outsource the content creation for your website (we’re talking headers, bios, the copy, icons, pics, graphics) it increases the final cost.

If you have a talented team with the right skills and can do it yourself, great.

At the same time, don’t cut corners with the content. The price here is a direct investment into the success of your website (read: first impressions matter). Bad content is easy to spot and can hurt the overall purpose of a re-redesign. Content creation is a worthy investment in this process.

The Process

A big factor in the price is who leads the redesign.

You can have a neighbor do it all for like $800, but there’s a big chance the low cost will show in the final product. Have we mentioned the importance of first impressions in the digital world?

Choosing the right partner/agency to redesign your website is important —their particular process plays a significant role in how much the project costs.

Some agencies have a long discovery process, and scope for the hours it takes to research and get to know your company upfront. They’ll likely spend 30-40 hours looking at all the details of your website and purpose of your business. Other agencies that don’t do this may end up spending more time with revisions or changing directions, so while your costs with them will be lower upfront they may change as you go.

You need to identify your biggest needs, the complexity of your website, and have a direct say in the process of the redesign.

When you are negotiating with a vendor, talk through the different steps and phases of the redesign. The costs may increase as the work gets going, but do your best to account for all the details (like those mentioned above) upfront so you can have an accurate budget and final cost for your website redesign.

Okay, great, but how much will a website redesign cost?!

It’s clear that lots of factors impact how much a website redesign costs.

The process, and agency, you use, the functionality and extra features, the size of your website, and who ends up creating the content for your site all add up to determine how much your redesign costs. At the end of the day, adding up all the different factors, a redesign will generally cost you between $10,000-$60,000.

A worthwhile investment. Half of the people visiting your website are immediately judging you! Give yourself a chance to impress, and show people a sharp website that takes them through an enjoyable journey to becoming loyal customers.